POSTAL workers in Greater Manchester are to be balloted on strike action - after a colleague was sacked for not wearing a cycle helmet on her delivery round.

Joanne Cyprus, 22, was spotted by bosses as she delivered mail in Northenden.

She explained someone had stolen her helmet, but was sacked, although her union says colleagues had only received warnings for the same offence.

Now the Communication Workers Union is to ballot all 100 staff at the Wythenshawe delivery office, in Sharston, on strike action. A strike could affect 100,000 people across Wythenshawe and at Manchester Airport.

The union believes Joanne's treatment breaches a nationally-agreed code of conduct and says Royal Mail management should reverse the sacking decision.

Joanne, of Compton Drive, Newall Green, said: "This has been awful for me. I feel like I've been treated badly and I am becoming more and more upset about it.

Replacement

"My mum and dad are worried about it and my little boy Zack has seen me crying and thought that it was because of something that he has done."

Joanne said she went to get her bike in the delivery office yard to find someone had taken her Royal Mail-issued helmet.

She started her round without asking for a replacement and was then spotted by two of her bosses. Under Royal Mail rules, all delivery staff using bicycles must wear a helmet.

But the CWU says that under the national code of conduct, such an offence should only receive a warning. The union says other people at Joanne's office caught not wearing a helmet have only received a "ticking off".

CWU branch secretary Jim McNicholls said: "Delivery staff should wear helmets and we accept there will be problems for people who do not wear them. This member of staff has been sacked, which is not what should happen."

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "A member of staff has been dismissed following the completion of our disputes procedure. As part of that code of conduct, any employee who is dismissed has the right of appeal."